As data analysis techniques have gotten smarter over the years, analytics have emerged as a specialized function of business employed broadly across industries and functions. Our new HfS Report, imaginatively titled Where offshore analytics is heading in 2011 investigates...

Buyers care where their providers are because stability, talent pool, infrastructure and the business and legal environment, determine how successful the relationship is going to be. Central and Eastern Europe is a fragmented region where cost, quality and scale varies.

Serious questions are now being asked of the leading service providers jostling for marketshare and position in the BPO business. Some providers are growing frustrated, and beginning to question whether they got their approach to BPO right. And the current speculation over Genpact ‘s future is forcing many of the BPO wannabes to gaze deeply into their navels to decide whether they want to get really serious about BPO. There's been a lot of chest-beating, a lot of marketing, a lot of huff and puff right across the industry... now's the time to see who's really going to step it up.

Healthcare has been on everyone's minds in the US, in the wake of the acrimonious legislative fight and with the recent elections. And when any industry gets the squeeze, us sourcing-folk immediately think "hmmm, will they now do some outsourcing...

Over the next year, you’ll be able to sample some of the most innovative thinking in sourcing change through Deborah Kops' frequent columns and commentary exclusively for HfS Research

We liked what we heard at CSC’s European analyst event. The provider outlined two strategies dealing with the short and long term realities of how you, the customer, buys IT and business services

CSC has struck out in a new direction sketching out a long-term position as a “service integrator” and laying out a cloud strategy that goes beyond the usual hype. The real test is whether CSC can channel its pricing and engagement models, its service management frameworks and—critically—its sales team in the same direction as the new IT services ecosystem emerges. This HfS RAPIDInsight sets out the HfS Research take on CSC’s strategy; what is needs to make it work, and what it means for customers.

We all make curious decisions in life, like when you accepted your mum's Facebook invitation... or when Bill O'Reilly decided to be born. However, these pale in comparison when one of Europe's finest services analysts traded the corporate upper-echelons of Forrester Research to help kick-start a quirky little feisty research upstart, that was launched out of a blog - with a name no-one the left side of the Atlantic understands. But it happened: Euan Davis really did join HfS Research!

The global insurance industry faces a challenging and unprecedented market environment; insurance premiums are falling, and insurance firms' profitability is nowhere near the pre-recession era. Added to this, insurers in the US and Europe need to battle several regulatory and compliance requirements in the next few years. HfS Research's new market landscape report entitled "Is Global Insurance BPO ready to grow up?" discusses these issues at length.

Innovation is now the critical ingredient for most buyers of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services –unequivocally proven by a new HfS Research study of 588 shared services and outsourcing executives. This report dives into the experiences and expectations of today’s enterprise BPO buyers when it comes to achieving innovation, and offers actionable recommendations for devising a strategy to improve their innovation agenda with their BPO endeavor.